The Independent Dramatic Company. Theatre Programme. Signed by the Cast Members (1910)

Constance Markievicz

Programme for two plays performed by The Independent Dramatic Company. At the Abbey Theatre. April 14th, 15th & 16th, 1910. The Memory of the Dead. A Romantic Drama of ’98. In three Acts by Casimir Dunin Markievicz (First production). Thursday & Saturday, at 8.15. With list of cast members. Including Constance de Markievicz. Mary. A Comedy, in Four Acts. By Casimir Dunin Markievicz (First production). Friday, at 8.15 and Saturday, at 2.30. With list of cast members. The programme is SIGNED in pencil on front cover by the following cast members: J.M. Carré, Honor Lavelle, M. Colomb, Edward Keegan, Seaghan Connolly (in Irish), M. Carolan (in Irish), Constance de Markievicz & P. MacCartan. Signed on rear cover by Dunin Markievicz and George Russell (A.E.). On this page Russell has drawn a sketch of a woman playing a violin, and a smaller sketch inside, a profile view of a male figure which is very similar in appearance to Russell (self-portrait?). Constance Gore Booth met her future husband Polish Count Casimir Markievicz while a student in Paris. Markievicz joined the Irish Citizen Army and was second-in-command to Michael Mallin in St. Stephen’s Green, during the 1916 Easter Rising. During the December 1918 election, Markievicz made history by becoming the first woman elected as an MP to Westminster. One of her fellow cast member Seaghan Connolly was a revolutionary and later became a captain in the Irish Citizen Army. He has the distinction of being the first rebel to be killed during the Easter Rising 1916. George Russell and W. B. Yeats shared a great love of the theatre and together set up the National Theatre Company, which eventually became the Abbey Theatre. Russell’s play Deirdre and Yeats’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan, which were performed together in Dublin in April 1902, are generally seen as the first Abbey plays. Count Casimir Dunin-Markievicz was a Polish aristocrat, playwright, theatre director, and painter. He played a key role in the Arts Club and The Independent Dramatic Company where he was playwright and director. A unique item linking the tide of Irish Literary revival with the violence of the 1916 Rising.